UP government again planning to close schools with low enrolment

The Uttar Pradesh government is once again setting plans in motion for closing and merging government schools with law enrolment. But this time, the instructions have been sent ‘confidentially’, say activists.

This time, directions from district education officials suggest that the plan is to merge schools where enrollment is under 20.

On June 17, block education officer, Sardarnagar, Gorakhpur, directed that Primary School Mirza Babu be merged with Primary School Rautenia Babu of Sardarnagar, both within the district. Even before that, on June 13, the office of district basic education officer, Mathura, had given directions to local authorities to “identify such schools in the respective development blocks in which the student enrollment number is 20 or less than 20”. The office also asked for proposals of mergers to be made available. Careers360 has seen both orders.

The Yogi Adityanath-led government’s plans of closing 27,000 schools across the state had caused a furore last year. In November, the government had dismissed reports of alleged closure of 27,000 primary schools. The reports had led to opposition party members from Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) lashing out at the UP government.

Careers360 had earlier reported on mergers in Kanpur leading to children being pushed away from education.

UP Govt’s closure plan, teacher shortage

Vishu Yadav, head, D.El.Ed Joint Trainee Front Union, Uttar Pradesh, said, “Last after the parties spoke against it, the issue was dismissed. However, now again the school closure letters have been sent to district education officers of 75 districts of UP. This means that after these school closures, there will be no government schools at every 1 km. And no one will send their children to schools too far. Instead of school closure, the government should focus on getting more children and teachers rather than closing them.”

Also read NITI Aayog suggests school mergers, teacher recruitment to transform education system

While the school closure notice has been released, no one is talking about the fact that no teacher recruitment has happened in the state since seven years, stated Yadav. “Last primary or secondary teacher recruitment happened in 2018 in UP. If there are no teachers in schools, parents will not send their children to school. The government is expecting that once students come then the teachers will be recruited,” he said.

Also, wherever teachers are available, they are pushed towards other clerical work including elections or other state-related work.

Yadav added that this time, the directions to close are going out in a “confidential manner”.